Scanlon's Opinion: Unmotivated Desires

Scanlon begins his attempt to show that desire does not play a role in motivation by drawing a distinction between two types of desires: Unmotivated desires and motivated desires. Unmotivated desires are things like hunger and thirst; these types of desires are involuntary. Motivated desires are the direct result of the conclusion that there is a reason to perform an action. Moreover, our reasoning motivates motivated desires — they are voluntary. According to Scanlon, given that there are motivated desires, which depend on our reasoning, and only exist because we have reasoned, then motivated desires should be taken as support for the idea that desire is not needed to be motivated by reason. This is because motivated desires are the products of reason. Thus, according to Scanlon, our reasoning, even in the absence of a corresponding desire, can motivate us to act.
Yet, …show more content…
This is demonstrated when he states, “What I am claiming… Is not that all desires arise from prior judgments, but that having what is generally called a desire involves having a tendency to see something as a reason” (Scanlon, 39). Scanlon does not mean to deny that unmotivated desires sometimes play a role in motivating us to act. Instead, Scanlon thinks the role unmotivated desires play goes through rationality. Unmotivated desires direct our attention to certain courses of action, and lead us to see certain considerations as reasons for these actions. Not all cases of acting for a reason involve such unmotivated desires, though. For example, we can believe we have reason to drink a bad tasting medicine or go to the dentist devoid of a corresponding unmotivated desire. Moreover, even when unmotivated desires are involved, our motivation does not usually come from them, but from reasons to which they direct